


They're Not Just Socks

by beachpartybb



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Imprisonment, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 00:50:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4284348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beachpartybb/pseuds/beachpartybb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz brings Tom a pair of socks during his imprisonment on the boat. They're just socks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They're Not Just Socks

“So here’s the deal, Liz. You’re gonna do whatever the hell you’re gonna do, you always have. Just do me a favor. Look me in the eyes when you do it.”

It was still her husband’s face, under the beard and the filth and Liz closed the heavy metal door between them to keep herself from doing something else. She watched him through the porthole and his eyes were dark and desperate and she felt the edges of his sanity like fraying threads in her fingers.

She turned away and went up on deck and sealed her husband away beneath her.

That night was the first hard freeze. She woke up once to see webs of frost spread across her window. She burrowed deeper into her blankets and thought of Tom, shivering in the dark. She thought of his eyes and his mouth, _if you go through with it, then we’ll be linked, forever_ , his lips so unnaturally still, she knew he was forcing down a tremor.

She curled over onto her side, yawning and flexing her toes against the sheets. Tomorrow, she would bring him a pair of the thick, woollen hiking socks he’d loved so much.

When she threw the socks at him the next morning, she could see on his face that he thought he’d gained something.

“Two days in a row.” Tom was always good at noncommittal --  better than she’d known, actually -- but Liz had her training, too. She stared down at him, face blank, until he reached out and grabbed the socks. He pulled off the thin, dirty cotton gym socks one at a time, teasing them off by the toes. He rubbed the wool of the new socks between his forefinger and thumb.

“Did you keep these?” He had been looking at the socks; now he looked up at her. “Or did you have to buy them?”

She turned around and walked toward the door.

“Wait!” She heard his chains rattle across the floor. “Wait. Liz. Thank you.”

She nodded at him over her shoulder.

“Do you remember,” and she heard his chains _clink-clinking_ as he sat down, “the time in my apartment in the City? When it sleeted and you soaked your shoes.”

Liz glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, her heart speeding in her chest, hating herself for even this show of weakness. Tom had one sock on, his knees drawn up, arms cradled loosely around them, watching her.

“You said you didn’t want me to get pneumonia,” she said.

“I didn’t,” he said.

Liz remembered the tiny one bedroom he’d rented in Williamsburg, across from the apartment building all the Hasidic Jews lived in, how they’d forgotten to close the blinds the first time she stayed over and the Super had banged on the door and cursed them out in Russian, didn’t they have any consideration for their neighbors, this was America, for God’s sake--  Her lungs constricted in her chest.

“Berlin didn’t,” she said rubbing the scar on her palm and she turned away and left the room and didn’t look back to see if he put on the other sock.

 

 

That night she dreamed, but it was also a memory.

It was winter in New York. The sky had been threatening new snow all day but Elizabeth Scott was too distracted to notice. She was caught up in Tom Keen, in his enthusiasm and charm and his warm blue eyes. This was their fifth date, but her nerves felt like it was the first.

She’d run late at the office and missed her train, so she’d caught a cab out to Brooklyn. She wasn’t sure she’d saved any time, because traffic was murder and even after they made it across the bridge the traffic had them at a standstill. She finally gave up and walked the last two blocks to the restaurant.

She could see Tom inside, sitting in a booth by the window. He seemed to be acting out a conversation, gesturing and smiling, then frowning in frustration, shaking his head, starting again. A waiter brought two glasses of water and lit a candle. Tom smiled briefly, bathed in the warm light from the candle, and Liz stopped, breathless. The wind whistled down the street like a particularly well-timed metaphor and she shrugged deeper into her coat. A few heavy drops of rain pattered on the pavement. Then Tom saw her and she smiled and waved and went inside.

After dinner it would sleet and they would run to her roommate’s car and her shoes would soak through and Tom would drive them back to his apartment and draw a bath. “Wouldn’t want you to get pneumonia,” Tom would say, and then he would rub her feet and give her a pair of thick, worn socks with careful darns in the heel, done in bright red thread.

After, they would make love for the first time.

 

 

When she woke, she dressed quickly, without giving herself time to think. She drove to the docks, her mind as dark and empty as the streets, and parked in front of the slip where the boat was tied up. It was stupid, someone could be watching, might recognize her car, but she knew if she walked two blocks through the snow she would talk herself out of whatever she was going to do.

She stood outside the door to Tom’s room, watching him sleep for several minutes before she went in. He was awake as soon as she spun the lock, but he didn’t move or open his eyes until she closed the door behind her again.

“Are you doing it now?” he asked, rolling onto his back and looking up at her. Showing his vulnerability. As if this man had ever been vulnerable in his life. Or maybe he had. She wouldn’t know. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know herself. With fingers stiff from the cold, she undid the buttons on her coat and dropped it on the floor beside the door, out of his reach. She shivered once when the air hit her skin through her thin nightgown. Then she toed off her shoes and added them to the pile.

“Liz.” Tom was sitting up now, wrapped in his blankets against the frigid air. It was too dark to read his eyes, to guess what he was thinking, even if she had known him well enough to do so in the first place.

“What are you doing?” he asked, real confusion and uncertainty in his voice. She thought it was real. She shimmied her underwear over her hips and let them drop to the metal deck, then stepped out of them. She saw his head tilt to look at them, then back up at her. He let the blankets fall onto the dirty mattress and scrambled forward to the furthest reach of his chains. She met him and pushed him back onto the mattress.

“God, Liz,” he breathed against her hair. “God, I’ve missed you so much.” He brushed kisses along her jaw, searching for her mouth, but she turned her face away. He froze for a minute, hands gentle against her shoulders. She knocked them away and fumbled at his fly, slipping the button loose and jerking the zip down.

“Wait,” he said, but she ignored him and jerked his jeans and boxers down his hips. He was half hard already. She wrapped her hand around his erection and he grabbed her wrist.

“Wait,” he swallowed. “Is this some kind of last meal kind of thing?” Liz pumped her fist slowly and his hips lifted involuntarily.

“If it is?” she asked, voice flat, swiping her thumb over the head of his cock. His hand on her wrist tightened for a moment and she wondered if he would fight her, hoped he would, would be just as satisfied by a fight -- but he released her and let his head fall back against the mattress.

She crawled up his body until she knelt over his hips, spat in her hand and worked him to full hardness. She could feel his chest rising and falling quickly but he was silent as she lifted her gown and guided him inside of her. She had been wet since she woke from the dream and he slid inside with no resistance, only a sharp intake of breath communicating his surprise.

His hands came up and gripped her hips, just holding her there, both of them feeling how deep he was. Then she moved her hips and the feel of his flesh dragging against hers made her shudder. He watched her as she rode him, letting her control the speed and depth of the thrusts, just drinking in the sight of her.

“Stop it,” she said, breathless, hips jerking against his.

“Stop what?” he asked. In answer, she put a hand over his eyes and ground down hard against him, clenching around his cock. She grunted in frustration, shifting to change the angle as she struggled toward climax.

“You can never come like this,” he said, voice straining, snapping his hips suddenly and wringing a cry from her. He did it again, rolling his hips up to meet her downward thrust. “That’s what you want, right?” He thrust up and pulled her hard against him and her hand fell away from his eyes to fist in the blankets beside his head. “Right? Liz, look at me.”

She looked down at him, at the gleam of his eyes in the darkness. “Yes,” she said, panting, grinding against him.

“Okay,” he said, turning his head to kiss her arm. “Okay.” He spread his fingers across her lower belly and rubbed at her clit with his thumb and she shuddered against him.

“Oh, fuck, Tom, yes,” she breathed, grabbing his shoulders and leveraging herself up. He guided her down with his hand on her hip, thrusting hard into her and rubbing circles against her clit. She could feel her orgasm building low in her belly and she raised herself up and slammed back down, circling her hips a little, a sob in the back of her throat threatening to break loose with every swirl of Tom’s thumb against her. And then it broke over her, a sharp snap and a rush of white hot pleasure as she cried out softly, shuddering and collapsing forward. She felt Tom thrust into her again, again, panting her name into her neck, and then he stiffened and he shoved at her hips.

“Liz, Liz, I’m going to--” but she tightened her thighs around his hips and rocked against him and she heard him curse and a few moments later he groaned and she felt his come splash hot inside her. He wrapped his arms around her and she lay against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow, until the sweat dried on her body and she felt the chill of the room, and he had gone soft inside her. Then she stood up and Tom’s cock slipped out of her and his semen trailed down her leg and she went to the pile of clothes by the door and began to dress.

When she buttoned the final button of her coat she turned to face him again. He was leaning against the hull, pants zipped and buttoned, watching her. His feet stuck out from under the blankets in his lap, still in the socks she had brought him earlier.

“Thanks,” he said, a little of the arrogance that was no part of the Tom Keen she had known showing in his voice. A spike of rage flashed through her and she suppressed it.

“For what,” she asked, slipping her hand in her pocket and wrapping her fingers around her gun. Tom followed the movement, then looked up at her and smiled.

“For the socks,” he said, wiggling his toes at her. She forced her hand to unclench from its grip on the gun. She forced a smirk, ignoring the slow seep of his come leaving her body, and the rising panic, and the little voice in her head screaming _what have you done, my God, what did you do_ , and pushed the door open.

“They’re just socks,” she said. Tom looked at her levelly and she remembered suddenly that even if he was opaque to her now, even if every word and glance and fact that had come together to let her understand him was a lie, he still knew her, down to her bones.

“Liz,” he said, gently, and she hated him for the gentleness, “they’re not just socks.”

“Goodbye, Tom,” she said, turning her head away to hide the fractures spreading across her face. She slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her, and if he said anything the sound of the lock spinning drowned it out.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
